Sunday, 3 April 2011

Spring is well and truly in the air which can only mean one thing, chez squat. Time to tackle the garden. A small attempt was made to tackle the garden last year but somehow in an amongst building a kitchen, bathroom, 3 bedrooms, living room, downstairs loo.... it fell by the way side. Slack!

Such excuses are no longer valid so, it's time to channel our best Percy Thrower and address the wasteland that is our 'garden'. In all honesty I think it has been 1 part lack of time, 3 parts fear that have held us back. Give me a wall to knock down, bathroom to design, builder to manage - pas de problem, give me a daffodil bulb and a bag of soil - stumped. I have been told I bare a passing resemblance to Guardian gardener supremo Alys Fowler, alas I have discovered that titian locks alone do not a gardener make.

In walk wonderful pal Jame to the rescue! James, just so happens to be a landscape architect. In exchange for plying him with booze and the odd Sunday roast we now have a fully fledged garden design. Don't be alarmed, there will be nothing fancy about this garden, our desires are simple, somewhere to sit, maybe throw the odd BBQ for friends, make the most of any sun we do have, somewhere to grow some veg and herbs, and a place to drink a glass of rose on a warm Summer's evening (clearly in my head I in in a garden in Provence not wasteland in Hackney!). The importance of reclamation and a 'lived in' feel remains prominent, James and I are definitely on the same page there.

Big snag with project garden is the necessity for patience, something I have very little of but will require in abundance. Still one step at a time.